Kitchen Vixen

People have always raved about Overture’s food, except maaaybe once or twice the dreaded F word was mentioned… As in ‘The food is great but it is quite… foamy‘. So I arrived, emboldened by Bertus Basson’s kind invitation to dine at Overture, with the intention of grilling Bertus-with-the-Mohawk about the scourge-which-is-Foam. Only to find Bertus channeling Nicolas Cage in the kitchen and serving an amuse bouche of duck rillettes with cornichons (little gherkins), egg mayo, confit of onion, bread and chunks of butter. What a cool combo of earthy delights. And I absolutely love it when the humble boiled egg gets to shine.

We very highly amused

A couple of quick chats with Bertus in between courses revealed that he has outgrown the mohawk and his grandiose dreams of cheffiness and is now focused on pushing the boundaries of fine food. Keeping it real, and doing it really well. As SA’s erstwhile top competition chef, skill and perfect execution are a given but having been at the top of his game for some time, he’s taking the liberty of serving funky cardboard boxes with crispy chicken wings and a delicious dipping sauce, because who says you can’t? The passion and dedication is infectious – hanging with Mr B is like sticking your finger in an electric socket. Which is pretty cool if you like a buzz! On this day a team of just three chefs manned the tiny open-to-view kitchen, which explains why all my pics are a bit blurred.

Greased lightening-a-trois

Many chefs claim to change their menu often but on closer inspection they cling to the crowd-pleasers. Or they simply can’t maintain the pace of frequently reinventing an entire menu to exacting standards. Not so at Overture. Each week sees an entirely new menu. After the duck rillettes we had a little Caprese salad which was so wickedly flavourful it had me peddling my feet for joy, followed by braised Springbok pie with white beans and minted peas.

Delicious little Springbok pie

The first three courses were my favourite part of the meal, which is often the case with tasting menus. I think my tastebuds become saturated and I generally prefer more flavourful, lighter dishes. Next up was home-brined tongue on risotto bianco, which was ever so delicately flavoured with lemon, parsley and capers. I have a love-hate thing going with tongue… it’s fine if it’s very thinly sliced and served with a good sauce, preferably in the mustard range… so in other words, I like it the boring old way. I battle when the tongue on my plate is thicker and harder than my own. Euw. Does that make sense? While I’m at it let me confess that I don’t like truffles. I KNOW!! Put the barbarian out of her misery and give her a lifetime supply of Wimpy vouchers. So, not only did the tongue not adhere to my weird and full-o-crap requirements, it was also served with a bit of truffle…oil probably. Cousin J was more than happy to help me finish this course. Later, enjoying a coffee on the stoep, we did the usual post-meal analysis:

Me: ‘I must confess… I know they’re terribly posh and the best thing in the world according to anyone who knows anything about food… but I really can’t stand the taste of truffles. It just overpowers everything and it tastes so…dank. And musty. And I know I should like it but I just don’t.’

Prickly pause…

Cousin J: ‘Well … … … quite frankly, neither do I.’

WHAT? I am not alone!

Me, in full truffle-bashing mode: ‘I think they taste like fossilized tree farts.’

Cousin J: ‘Yes, or like constipated mother earth turds.’

Me: ‘But wouldn’t that taste much like fossilized tree farts in any case?’

You get the picture… we had the Chefs Menu with wine pairing. The rest of our food was great. A hake & prawn curry with coriander and cucumber, then a funky version of a Banana Split served on equally groovy blue plates from Monsieur Prix (nice touch, at R11,50 a pop!). But what really blew my mind was when I rocked up a week later with the Expresso team and was treated to a few dishes from the new menu. And it was right up my alley. I spotted this little beaut just before it left the kitchen:

Chicken parfait with nut loaf

And here’s Bertus finishing off the endive salad to go with the chicken parfait. What a lovely combo.

Sharp & tart meets robust & rich

And then I was treated to a demonstration of the Sole Petit Pois a la Francais. I LOVE petit pois a la frenchie. This dish is so simple and clean yet it just klaps all the flavour buttons.

O my sole petit pois a la francais...

Peas in chicken stock with bits of bacon (lardons, si vous voulez) and lettuce leaves that blanch to release such subtle flavour… don’t know why we don’t eat more of it? And I saw but wasn’t fast enough to photograph the Saffron risotto with smoked garlic, Buffalo Ridge mozzarella and courgette –  another winner.

Here's Bertus baring his sole to me

I unfortunately had to leave before the Expresso team was treated to lunch. After spending time in the Overture kitchen my dinner party menu for that night seemed hopelessly uninspired… I dragged myself through the shops, encountering one out-of-stock ingredient after another, knowing that post-Overture my efforts would look and taste terribly domestic. But I dutifully started cooking when I got home. Milly installed herself on the couch in the kitchen and I think her expression sums it up perfectly….

YAWN... whadya cookin lady?

The beauty of Overture is that every week is different. I so happened to have preferred the second week’s menu to the one that I was originally invited to enjoy… but it’s all brilliant and the amazing thing is, there’s always more.

Thanks Bertus & team for a bolt of inspiration.

If you hang just a little more South in Joburg, the malls of the Super North give way to leafy avenues with little eateries and eccentric shops. Like ODD Cafe in Greenway Street, Greenside. An art house cum tapas bar that waxed into a full-blown restaurant, by popular demand of the patrons who dot the pavement on a crazy mix of chairs around comic strip-covered tables. You can breathe out now.

Crazy beautiful

Street bling

Owned by Divan Coetzer and Christina Patricios, ODD provides young hipsters with seriously cool, deliciously crafted alternatives to MacDonalds. The emphasis is on great food made from scratch with only the best ingredients.

Streetwise eating

I tasted four dishes and they were all delicious. I’m lying… we completely devoured all four dishes. For a more detailed description catch the review on SABC3 Expresso Show tomorrow morning at 6.50. ODD Cafe proves that you don’t need starched linen and fine china to serve an awesome meal. Flavours were robust yet clean, and they really go out of their way to source only the best produce. The winelist is dominated by Swartland wines – which is just dandy – and it came as no surprise that the owners are friends with Mynhard Joubert of Bar Bar Black Sheep in Riebeek Kasteel, another favourite restaurant of mine. ODD has a funky Long Street vibe about it, circa the mid nineties.

Home from home in Jozi

I had a starter of bruschetta with cured pork, roasted peppers, artichoke pesto, sour cream and Mama’s chili sauce which was super tasty. And then the handmade gnocchi with cumin pears and Verbelegen cream (made with 9 month matured Magaliesberg Verbelegen cheese), served with Parmesan and pomegranate pips.

Light, freshly made gnocchi

But what I’d go back for is the Trinchado in red wine sauce that my friend ordered. It’s a total spot-hitter.

Trinchado in red wine sauce

Perfect with a glass of juicy Swartland red.

When in Jozi I’d go to ODD Cafe again to enjoy a delicious unpretentious meal, good tunes and the ever-changing street scene. Because, as they say at ODD, Life’s Delicious…

My mom, Nell Weyer-Henderson who became Nell du Plessis, died in June last year and today is her birthday.

Beautiful Nell

She’s been on my heart so much since it turned April. This is her month. Her week, her day. My clock is so attuned. She wasn’t a hugger or a sayer of soothing words. She showed her love through food. And it showed in her food. Which is why I love it so much. I trust it. Simply, like a child loves love.

I miss our to-the-bone conversations and her wicked sense of humour.

Say no more. I’ll leave you with this pic of mom hamming it up after a Sunday morning game of tennis on her dad’s farm, way back in the sixties.

So I finally made it to HAAS for a cup of civet poo coffee. Before I talk about the most expensive cup of coffee in the world, let me just say what a lovely shop it is. I could put the kitsch into kitchen vixen with those Tretchikoff cushions. So refreshing to walk into a shop devoid of fake French crap made in China. My friend Mariana and I chose the little courtyard at the back, nice and quiet, with lovely plush chairs to match the luxurious price (R80) of a cup of Kopi Luwak – or – coffee made from beans that have passed through Asian Palm Civets, whole, only to be cleaned, roasted and consumed as the world’s finest coffee.

Coolest HAAS on the block

I always need a good cuppa and something to eat after my early morning gig at Expresso, so ordered a croissant with ham and cheese, served with a homemade sweet chili sauce. HAAS has a small food menu and a large selection of coffees. About halfway through my croissant the coffee arrived. I knew from Sam’s blog www.confessionsofahungrywoman.co.za not to expect the earth to move with the first sip. Still, the thrill of expectation wasn’t entirely absent…

I don’t know if the scientific world would agree but if you eat cold chili and then add heat (in the form of hot coffee) to the merry melange bopping on your taste buds… the chili kind of expands and blossoms. Becomes hotter? Yes?

With my first sip I thought: ‘Crikey, I’ve connected with a chili-junkie civet in need of an intervention, the delinquent of the group…’ But Mariana’s coffee wasn’t spicy at all and so the penny started to slow-mo its way down (must be the 4am wake-up call). I added lots of milk and sugar and had a decent though not exactly distinct cup of coffee.

The adorable coffee-loving Asian Palm Civet

Civet poo before the beans are extracted, washed, dried, roasted and filtered to a cup near you.

But the X factor apparently doesn’t lie in the taste. It is just supposed to be the cleanest most balanced coffee, thanks to the hard working enzymes in the civet’s digestive tract. Kindly refrain from interactive mental imagery at this point.

Owner Glynn Venter must be so over customers quizzing the absence of a Damascan flavour-flash on tasting the Kopi Luwak that he readily recommended The Famous Jailbreak blend from Ethiopia as the bomb. At R65 for a 500g bag no Civets were employed in the making of this coffee and it is far more affordable.

Ethiopian Jailbreak

Described as ‘flamboyantly sweet with a heady, slightly wine-toned and somewhat rustic sweetness’ on the label, I can vouch for its bouquet. Even through the packaging it smells wonderful. I’ve had two cups and it is a good coffee, although I strongly suspect my plunger is not doing it justice. The time has come to get a real coffee machine. Despite gorgeous George’s attempts to seduce the entire planet to drink Nespresso, I’m a bit weary of the company going bust and me being stuck with a machine and no pods, much like all the people with their polaroid cameras and no film in the eighties.

I would love to have freshly ground beans brewed immediately. And I don’t want to be locked into one brand. The HAAS Collective has much to offer, as do other bean pushers. Glynn mentioned they’ll soon be stocking Spanish machines for home use.

Thank you Mariana for a lovely coffee treat.

Tomorrow morning I’m reviewing the Green House restaurant at the Cellars Hohenhort Hotel in Constantia. That’s in Cape Town, for my Australian reader. Reviewing a restaurant in four minutes at seven in the morning on live TV has its challenges… More often than not I can choose the restaurant and I try to feature establishments that are great because I think it’s important to give the public info on where to find a good, great, awesome meal. And not necessarily always the most expensive or ‘out there’ meal either.

But different occasions call for different meals and the Green House falls in the super special category. Chef Peter Tempelhoff is a master of his art who indulges in a variation of molecular gastronomy. My aversion to foam is well documented (in my own blog if nowhere else) and I’m with Julia Child who said that food shouldn’t be fiddled with too much but on the other hand, I am not ashamed to admit that I quite recently battled to whip egg whites and if you scroll down just a little you’ll see that on Saturday a tough cut of Karoo mutton nearly whipped my ass, so when it comes to this level of technical execution, I applaud the skill and imagination involved:

Abalone carpaccio served on dry ice

Tomorrow I’ll be talking about his carpaccio of raw scallops and blackened tuna served on pickled Asian mushrooms with wasabi panna cotta and cucumber sorbet – and for the molecular piece de resistance – the waiter sprinkles powdered yuzu dressing on the dish which smokes as it evaporates, leaving the dressing behind. This is a delicious dish, scientific accomplishment aside. I quit science at the end of standard six so my fear is that I’ll say liquid hydrogen in stead of liquid nitrogen – which is what he uses to create the smokey dressing dust – and that would be a blooper of atomic proportions.

There are but a few chefs in South Africa who create this type of cuisine successfully – and I measure success by whether the food still tastes amazing, sci-fi tricks aside – and the Green House is home to one of them. It’s not everyday food and you should definitely not attempt it at home, but for a bolt of inspiration and haute food art you will not be disappointed.

I’m glad I cook often and I fluff up regularly because in the restaurant reviewing game, it’s just too easy to take potshots. Hell, I even over-boil my eggs every now and then. So, much as I dislike foam and although I prefer my food more clean and plain (boring, even) I consider myself very fortunate to have enjoyed a tasting course at the Green Room. It’s a dramatic designer thrill.

Right, off to bed. Four am start tomorrow.

After my altercation with the mutton I needed something comforting for breakfast. A recent conversation with Bertus Basson of Overture reminded me of one of my childhood favourites – the gloriously cool eier-in-‘n-venstertjie. Why did I ever outgrow this? My mom used to make them with government brown or white and I think it’s probably still the best bread choice, or at least use a soft, loosely textured bread that will absorb the egg nicely. I used rye cause that’s what I had.

Hip to be square

Cut a little square out of each slice and heat some oil and a blob of butter in a pan. Pop the slices in the pan and flip once the one side is a nice golden brown (not endorsed by Weigh-Less). Then you drop an egg into each hole. Comme ca:

Lekker fee range eggs from Stellies food market

I flipped them briefly just to seal the other side and served them with a bit of rocket, the usual Roma tomatoes and a dollop of the most delicious Venezuelan chili sauce called Guasacaca that I got from the Orinoco stall at the Stellenbosch Food Market. Bloody marvelous!

Breakfast of Champions

I had to stay away from restaurants for a bit so all this golden oldie stuff was exactly what I needed.

‘This is not the lamb you buy from Woolies,’ my aunt said as she wrapped the leg for its journey back to Cape Town, ‘it’s a mature Karoo skaap and it’s flavourful but you have to slow-roast it in a medium oven otherwise it’ll be tough.’ Which was the plan on Saturday night as the Morkels from Scarborough had arrived and having them here was cause for celebration. Except we’re such old friends we decided to have an afternoon nap before hitting the kitchen. And when Susan woke me at about 6 we were actually, technically, already running late…

I minced four anchovies, a good couple of garlic cloves and a handful of rosemary, added a bit of olive oil and seasoning and gave the leg of mutton a good rub. Popped her in the oven and went for a walk. All rather chilled…

Back home again I cut a few sweet potatoes into long fingers, zested an orange and scattered the peel, plus squeezed the O juice over. Few blobs of butter, some olive oil and into the oven. Out came the blue pot with the leg of mutton. And clearly she had not spent enough time in the oven. So what do you do? Change of plan, open another bottle of wine and start video blogging, say I!

Check it out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sY2AveAB2FA

Yes, I have conquered the technoschmechno and am now on Youtube. You might have to cut and paste this link though. Some of my Expresso reviews can also be viewed on Youtube under kitchenvixenSA.

We had a lot of fun. I wear a lot more clothes than other kitchen vixens out there but to me the name is more about a gung-ho, lost-the-recipe and make a plan type of attitude than trying to be a sink slut or a vacuum-packed vamp… not that I’m saying I’ll NEVER have work done but for now, after this little snippet of video self-confrontation, I appreciate the Expresso make-up ladies even more…

This sheep played hard to get. We had to treat her with the respect that an old Karoo lady deserves. With time, she yielded and released the type of flavour that only a couple of years of grazing on karoobossies can achieve. We ate a bit later but with a bottle of Springfield Methode Ancienne Cab and a few delicious sweet potato fingers to help pass the time, it was a sublime wait. In retrospect the meat was so flavourful, I really didn’t need to do the whole anchovy rub thing. Best save that for a shop-bought leg of lamb that needs boosting.

Karoo mutton with citrus sweet potato fingers, courgettes and roma tomatoes

But surely one of the BEST reasons to do a leg of lamb (or bobotie for that matter) is the next-day sandwich. I can’t get hungry soon enough to have a lamb, tomato and chutney sandwich. One of life’s lovely little pleasures.

Precious thing

Another great reason to do a leg of lamb is that Milly could get stuck into something a little more crunchy than her usual pellets.

Milly

Happy days all round.

Last weekend marked the end of an era for me. Liam Tomlin’s first 20-part Basic Techniques and Methods of Cookery course came to an end. And with holiday breaks and all, we the class of 2010/11 got together every second weekend on a Saturday for almost a year… from May ’10 to April ’11. That takes some doing…

What an amazing way to spend a Saturday morning with great people. Not to mention the food. We ended with cheese and after my souffle experience in Napier, the star of this day was Liam’s double baked souffle. The beauty of this dish is it’s not such a big deal if the souffles are on the flat side.

Four little souffles in a pan

Dropped in cream and with a liberal sprinkling of Gruyere, the souffles are baked once more to emerge as a thing of immense beauty and calorific nonchalance.

Frommage for all

But our last class wasn’t so much about the food. It was a celebration of an amazing experience shared. Since our sommelier Guy Harcourt-Wood absconded to Joburg to smous fancy French wine the availability of a decent Pinot wasn’t always a given, so I took one with to ensure we ended on a happy note.

And then the gorgeous Scanpan that Liam used for his double baked souffles caught my eye… how to get my hands on one of those? With 15 people in the class (at R100 a head) Liam and Jan were bullied into a quick raffle… R1500 would buy us an equally sexy Le Creuset pan and one lucky Chefs Warehouse graduate would head home with a deeply attractive piece of kitchen hardware.

I totally didn't rig it!

But I should have. After much anticipation and happy hysterics, Rachel drew Anette Myburgh’s name from the pan. DAMN! I’ll have to make another plan.

Lucky lady, Anette from Joostenberg Wines

Anetta had quite a day, actually… at one point Liam overturned a bowl of stiff egg whites over her head to show that the eggs absolutely wouldn’t slide out, and they didn’t… so maybe the Le Creuset compensated for the tense seconds under Liam’s mixing bowl.

Eggstreme measures

Although I’m a bit relieved that I don’t have to set aside every second Saturday for cookery school, after a year it has become part of my routine and something I’ll miss. Whenever I caramelize something I’ll think of how Liam says ‘kaarmelize‘ and have a bit of a laugh.

Funnyman Mark (left), captain of the backchat table

The notoriously noisy table at the back

Rachel, who at one stage gave up on ever seeing this blog materialize, and when it did, she promptly berated me for not being on Twitter - thanks mam!

My table, without the lovely Hilda who couldn't make the last class.

The Chefs Warehouse team - thanks guys, you rock!

Me and my dodgy photographic skills... Rachel, I know I owe you a disc with all the food pics!

My very last pic of the course - a little cheesecake

Thanks Liam and Jan. You’ve added a class act to the Cape culinary scene.

PS – two weeks after our riotous last class, Anette sent this pic of her new pan with double-baked souffles. Small one’s with cheddar cheese for her sons and bigger souffles with Gruyere for mister husband. I think the pan went to the right person – a lady who whips up souffles for the men in her life before going out for the evening is one cool mama!

Boys night looks amazing

Whether prompted by the recession or to fit snugly between little fingers, Bakers have produced a range of mini biscuits. And they are incredibly cute. Have you ever seen the mini Marie, the mini Eet-Sum-Mor, the mini Tennis (my personal favourite) and the mini Romany Creams Balls? I love the simplicity of Tennis biscuits and first bought a packet of mini Ts when I attempted a detox diet in January… yes, let that sink in nicely before you continue.

Gandalf (top), with Frodo, Pippin, Merry and Sam

The thinking was that when I simply had to cheat, I could have four mini Ts whilst actually having the equivalent of just one biscuit. In fact, four mini Ts don’t even make one whole big T, see exhibit A below.

Thumbnail-sized treats

I got the detox diet from a well-known ladies mag… which I generally as a rule never ever buy because they make me feel fat, ugly and on a collision course with dread disease (whichever one’s the flavour of the month). Yet, after a three week road trip fueled by Karoo lamb and litres of wine, a more fascist approach was called for.

The article contained pearls such as: No starving – promise! and One vital rule to follow on this eating plan is to avoid snacking between meals… So what happened to the six-mini-meals-a-day school of thought? The one I graduated from, huh? But I think what spelled my doom before I’d even downed my first cup of hot water with lime and sliced ginger… was the bizarre nut allocation throughout the diet.

Day 1, breakfast: Amongst other things, 2 almonds. TWO ALMONDS.

Day 2, breakfast: Blah blah and ONE BRAZIL NUT. WTF? One nut. What must I do with the rest of the packet? Even better, what must I do with one nut. Can’t I just have 4 almonds??? What if you don’t have people around to scoff the rest? How are you supposed to maintain your detoxed derriere with all the nuts in the house from day 6 onwards and for the rest of your life? Have you magazine people given this proper thought?

Day 3… TWO WHOLE WALNUTS. Aha, I thought… now I get it. You buy a bag of mixed nuts and carefully select your daily nut/s. But what cruel temptation…. when is it cashew day? And we all know it will never be macadamia nut day on a diet so when will it be OK to eat all the NICE NUTS… The one’s that taste good with beer.

Just thinking about this diet drove me nuts, hence the Bakers four-for-one biscuit solution to snacking. But a few good things came of my half-baked attempt at detox:

1. I made a cabbage/tomato/carrot soup which I snacked on between real snacks and meals. It lasts for up to four weeks in the fridge but if you push it to eight, you can weave placemats with it.

2. I jotted down everything that I consumed for two days and the results were so shocking I stopped. I stopped jotting them down, I mean…

Day 1: One banana, 2 slices rye toast with jam, 2 cappuccinos, sachet of bbq chicken fillets on the run, salad with rocket, feta, tomatoe and blueberries, “1” Tennis biscuit (4 minis), 1 chomp (another golden oldie, tastes like brown crayon but I love it), bowl of detox cabbage soup, 2 provita with cottage cheese, another two provita with cottage cheese, and 2 glasses of wine and regretfully, I have to admit… 9 cigarettes.

Day 2: Was much worse but you get the picture. The more you think about it the more you eat.

Except the mini Bakers really work. They somehow hit the spot and you really won’t have 12 in one go. I betcha. Plus I get to post a ridiculous header, devoid of truth, designed to prey on your fear-of-fat-rear, promising unlikely weight-loss – much like all the wimmins magazines out there…

BUT this got me thinking… So, yes, it’s COMPETITION TIME!

Remember the triangular cheesecake I wrote about not too long ago? It’s made with three rows of Tennis biscuits, folded in a triangular shape and frozen. Like so:

Expo Kaaskoek aka Boere Casata

The first person to send a pic of a triangular cheesecake made with mini Tennis biscuits (just three rows, so it’s a proper miniature version of this recipe) wins a case of Noble Savage red wine. Delivery’s on me! Other mini versions of classic desserts made with these biscuits are most welcome too!

Less is morish!

And no, the people at Bakers have nothing to do with this. I just think they’re cool.

It takes all types of restaurants to feed this world and What’s On Eatery in Watson Street, Cape Town, hits the home-from-home spot. Surrounded by office blocks, they have a deli downstairs that caters for hungry worker bees who either collect take-outs or have them delivered to their desks. In my not too distant past I worked across the street from What’s On and this little dish would have featured in my lunch week:

Prawn, chorizo and saffron risotto

Upstairs is more plush yet playful, with a VIP Private Dining Room for food-friendly meetings away from the office. Or for a special little dinner party. Owner Trevor Jordaan is passionate about the hospitality industry and his aim was to create home cooking with a tad more panache than ouma would have made it. I love the view from the top floor – twin towers Cape Town-style…

Open for breakfast and lunch, Monday to Friday from 7am – 4pm, and for dinner from Wednesday to Saturday. Contact Trevor at 021 422 5652.